


Sugar

by Karis_Artemisia_Judith



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Diners, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Holidays, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 01:29:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5608618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karis_Artemisia_Judith/pseuds/Karis_Artemisia_Judith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Officer Bjorgman goes to the diner for his coffee every morning. He drinks it plain, but the redheaded waitress brings him sugar every day...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sugar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hannahberrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahberrie/gifts).



It was summer the first time he saw her, and there were fake sunflowers on the tables of the little diner. He’d been going to the diner every day for nearly a year to get his morning coffee, and there had never been anything on the tables except napkins, salt & pepper shakers, and stains from hundreds of coffee cups. The diner was a fixture, one of unchanging the landmarks of the little town. Its neon sign had hummed and buzzed one main street for as long as Kristoff could remember—it had been there when he was a kid, newly adopted, shy and wide-eyed, and he’d been taken there for ice cream. It had been there during high school, when he’d avoided it because it was always crowded with other students on awkward dates. And it had been there when he’d come home, after his training and after his year-and-a-half of working in the city and after he’d nearly lost faith in humanity.

“Morning, officer!” She was new—not one of the gum-popping high schoolers who usually waitressed during the summer, but still fresh-faced and bright-eyed, all red hair and big smile. Her name tag told him ‘Hi! My name is Anna!’ “What can I get you?” Anna asked.

“Coffee,” he said shortly.

“Milk? Sugar?”

“No.”

“Seriously? No sugar?”

“No.”

“Are you _sure_ you can drink that stuff without sugar?”

He tried to frown at her, but her expression of comical horror was too much and a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “I’m sure.”

She brought him sugar anyway.

She brought him sugar every morning for weeks, even though he always took his coffee black. The bitter, slightly burned taste of the diner’s horrible coffee helped wake him up, he told her. Anna wrinkled her nose. “That does not sound like the best way to wake up,” she said.

“Oh? What do you use?”

“Sugar,” she said firmly. “Lots of sugar.”

In the fall she put plastic pumpkins on each of the tables and she wore a headband with big mouse ears while she served tables. Kristoff didn’t even have to place an order, as soon as he walked in she was meeting him at his regular spot with his coffee and a bowl of sugar packets.

“Doris! I’m on break!” Anna called over her shoulder. Doris waved vaguely from behind the counter, and Anna sat down across from him in the booth. He wasn’t quite sure how the ritual had started, when Anna had started joining him over his morning cup of nasty, tongue-scalding caffeine, but here they were. He sipped his coffee while she told him about her evening, the Halloween decorations she’d put up and the huge bags of candy she’d bought and how excited she was for cold weather. And in return he found himself telling her things about himself—about Mr. Fredericks, who had snuck out to try to go back to his old job and gotten lost again, and about his ma’s newest foster kids, and how Sven had gone with him to give a talk at the middle school and completely stolen the show.

“Where did you live?” he asked once, while she built a wall with the sugar packets he wasn’t using. “Before here, I mean.”

“Oh, in the city. My family had this big company, and my sister kind of runs things, and I had a job with it, and I was—um—there was this guy, and—” Her wall fell over, sugar packets sliding across the table.

“Sugar’s not a great building material,” Kristoff said, trying to bridge the silence.

“I guess not.” Anna offered him a smile—not her usual beaming smile, but a tight little close-lipped smile. “Anyway, I really needed a change, and I was tired of working in an office, and this is where my mom grew up and I thought this town was so pretty, so I came to live here. Boring story, really. What about you? Doris said you’ve been here, what, a year?”

“I’ve been back a little over a year,” he said. “I didn’t come here as a teen much, so Doris wouldn’t remember me, but I grew up in town. I was one of Ma’s fosters, and,” he shrugged and grinned. “She thought I was cute, I guess, because she kept me. I left to go to police academy, and then—”

“And then?” she prompted.

“Then I lived in the city for a while too. I didn’t like it.” Kristoff shrugged. “I nearly quit the police force, but then I heard they were hiring here and Ma talked me into moving back and taking the job.”

She smiled at him again, and this time it was the smile that made her eyes sparkle and lit up her face like a beacon. “I’m glad you did,” she told him. “Can you imagine if we met in the city?”

He did imagine it—her in a shimmering dress and mile-high heels, her hair done up, on the arm of some snobby guy with a fancy car. He might have seen her from a distance while he worked traffic detail, but he wouldn’t have met her. Kristoff shook his head. “I doubt that would have even happened.”

“Good think we both moved, huh?”

It was December. There were fabric poinsettias on each table, and sparkling swags of garland on the counter and lights along the walls. Anna wore a skirt covered in sequins so that she glittered under her apron. As they sat together in the morning she looked wistfully out the window.

“I wish it would snow. It doesn’t feel like Christmas without snow.”

“I don’t mind,” he said. “You get fewer people crashing their cars when there’s no snow.”

“I guess. And it’s not like I could go out in it, I don’t even have a sled anymore. But when I was a kid my sister and I played in the snow all the time and I miss—I miss feeling like a kid.” She sighed and tried to make a house of the sugar packets.

“I’d better get to work,” he told her.

“Me too. See you tomorrow!”

“Not tomorrow—it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow. I’m off work.”

“Oh.” Her face fell for a second but then she was smiling brightly again. “Well, merry Christmas! I guess I’ll see you next week.”

“You’re staying in town?”

“Yeah—my sister has this crazy project at work, so we agreed to have a delayed Christmas this year. Kind of a big Christmas and New Year sister bash. It’ll be great! But this week it’s just me and the holiday movie marathons. I’m going to go through _so much_ hot chocolate.”

He thought about her all day, about the moment when her smile had slipped away and she’d looked so sad, and he thought about waking up tomorrow and knowing he wouldn’t get to see her that day. He thought about her all alone on Christmas.

His shift ran long, the pre-Christmas chaos spiking with a few minor accidents in parking lots and other festive nonsense, and Kristoff barely made it back to the diner in time. He had to use his sirens to do it, too, but if he didn’t make it then he’d miss his chance—he didn’t have Anna’s phone number, he had no idea where she lived, and if he missed her….

But he didn’t. She was locking the door as he pulled up, lights still flashing as she turned to stare at him.

“Kristoff? What’s wrong?”

“What—Oh! Uh, nothing’s wrong, exactly, I just, um—I wanted to be sure I caught you. I wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay,” Anna said. There was a long pause. “What?” she prompted.

“Do you want to spend Christmas with me? I mean, with my family? It’s a zoo, and it’s crowded and loud and they’re kind of pushy, and—oh god, they’re going to assume we’re a couple, and they’ll make a big deal about it, but I just thought you shouldn’t be alone, on Christmas, and—”

Anna touched his arm lightly. “Kristoff, I would love to meet your family. They sound—they sound _wonderful_.”

He grinned at her. “Really? You’re sure?”

“Yeah!”

“Then I’ll pick you up, tomorrow—if you want, we do Christmas Eve dinner, and then Christmas brunch, I mean you don’t have to do both, but you can, if you want—I should probably get your phone number—”

“Hang on!” Anna unlocked the door of the diner and darted inside, going behind the counter. There were bells on her boots and she jingled as she moved. She came back with a handful of sugar packets. “Here!”

Kristoff stared at the white paper squares in his palm. “Wait, what are these for—”

“Look, silly. I’ve been trying to give you my number for _months_.”

There it was, a string of numbers written along the edge of every single packet. “Wait, that first time you brought me sugar, did you—”

Anna grinned at him. “What do you think?”

Kristoff closed his hand around the sugar and grinned back. “So,” he said slowly. “If my family thinks we’re a couple, how would you—”

“That would be okay with me,” Anna said, rubbing her hands together. “I mean, if you—”

“Yes,” Kristoff said hastily. He hastily stuffed the sugar packets in his pocket so that he could reach for her hand, but Anna caught him off guard by stepping into his arms.

“It’s getting colder,” she said, smiling up at him.

“Is it?” Kristoff didn’t feel cold.

“Yeah, it—” Anna glanced around, her eyes lighting up. “It’s snowing! Kristoff! It’s snowing!” Anna stepped away from him to twirl in the falling, swirling snowflakes, except that she kept hold of his hand, tugging him along after her as the snow fell, covering the town in glittering white that sparkled like sugar.


End file.
